October 22, 2026
Official Lebanese silence continues to prevail for the second day in a row, amid a complete absence of any public reaction from Prime Minister Nawaf Salam or Foreign Minister Youssef Raji, regarding the recent statements of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in which he announced the arrest of Ali Kayali, known as “Miraj Ural.”
During a speech before the Turkish Parliament, Erdogan congratulated the Turkish and Syrian intelligence services on their success in arresting Kayali, who is accused of responsibility for the Turkish “Reyhanli” bombings and the Syrian “Baniyas” massacre, considering that “the time for reckoning has come,” and praising what he described as “unsung heroes” in the two countries’ intelligence services.
These developments come in the wake of Lebanese security and judicial reports that Kayali was kidnapped from his home in the Mansouriya area by elements linked to Syrian and Turkish intelligence, before he was transferred to Syrian territory. While Agence France-Presse quoted a Lebanese security source confirming that the operation took place without the knowledge of the Lebanese authorities, the Syrian side promoted the existence of prior coordination with Beirut.
Lebanese judicial investigations showed the involvement of four Syrians and a Lebanese in the kidnapping, which places the Lebanese state before a serious test of its national sovereignty, and raises major question marks about the circumstances of carrying out a foreign security operation inside Lebanese territory without permission or prior knowledge from state institutions.
Criticisms are mounting against the political leadership in Lebanon for its lack of action and demands from Ankara and Damascus for official clarifications regarding the violation of national sovereignty, especially since the Lebanese government has always made the extension of state authority and the exclusivity of security decisions a fundamental pillar of its political discourse.
The following circles confirm that the gravity of the charges against Ali Kayali does not in any way justify any external intelligence services violating Lebanese sovereignty and carrying out security operations outside the framework of the local authority and judiciary, which makes the Lebanese government’s current position vulnerable to questioning the extent to which the defense of sovereignty is subject to narrow political calculations.
